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Prof. Akbar Ahmed helped me with two different programmes last week, explaining the fallout from the storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad - for World Update, as I mentioned in my last posting, and for Reporting Religion on the impact of the crisis on the ongoing struggle between militants and moderates in Islam.

During our time together, we shared memories and regrets about Peshawar, the main city in Pakistan's NWFP, the northwest frontier province.

I have so many fond memories of this wonderful, fervid city - dusty, busy and really on the edge, being the last resupply stop on the way the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan.

As a reporter and later as a climber I spent many days in Peshawar meeting contacts, preparing journeys, interviewing Afghan refugees or just enjoying the atmosphere.

And wandering around the markets, where cheap hotels advertised 'flesh system' - it took me a while to work out this was a promise of flush toilets, not illicit sex.

Usually I ate in the Khyber Cafe, where the waiter had bright red dyed hair - unusual vanity, I thought, in a middle aged man in a piously Muslim town. (In fact, I learned later, the colour was probably a mark of his faith.)

Now, as the professor and I remarked with sadness, the piety has made the place almost impossible to visit. Whereas in the past a foreign visitor was a welcome source of extra income (often, as I found out from the many uninvited offers I received, assumed to be looking for cheap hashish) now it's a rather scary place for Westerners, who generally don't go there, because militantly political Islam is dominant.

"Look what they've done to Peshawar!" moaned Professor Ahmed. "It was so beautiful, now it's ugly."

I don't suppose he means the buildings, but the mood.

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